


World's Biggest World I: Two Sleepy People

by Mallory Klohn (malloryklohn)



Series: World's Biggest World [1]
Category: Queer as Folk (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-10
Updated: 2009-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:24:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malloryklohn/pseuds/Mallory%20Klohn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, they've pressed the button.  Stepped off.  New Planet.  But in between one place and the next, there is an assload of driving.  Really, it was only a matter of time before Stuart got restless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	World's Biggest World I: Two Sleepy People

** One:  
Two Sleepy People **

by  
Mallory Klohn

One thing Stuart had discovered early on in  
his travels with Vince was that there were myriad guide books devoted to the  
subject of obscure points of scenic interest around the world: quirky roadside  
attractions and scary novelty shops, museums for the deranged, enormous  
monuments to things that never should've existed in the first place...

These places were eclectic and almost as  
numerous as the guide books that advertised them, and each and every one  
boasted a small but dedicated group of fans-- zealots, really-- who would  
defend unto death the glory of such places, claiming that they possessed a  
certain cultural relevance, a certain beauty, a certain necessity.

The Pouce Coupe Last Chance Gas was no such  
place.

It was a large, boxy building that stood  
adjacent to the acres of greasy tarmac and fuel pumps that made up the Gas  
portion of its name. The lights above the tarmac were aggressive and  
malevolent, far more than might be needed to roast a frozen turkey to juicy,  
golden perfection in fifteen minutes or less.

Given that it was the only thing he'd seen  
in eighty miles or more that was neither road nor trees, it had seemed bleak  
enough before he'd given it his full attention. _Now_ it resembled nothing  
so much as an Orwellian institution of some sort in which people were punished  
for self-abuse, thought crimes, and deviant behavior. Only the stiff banner  
above the double doors advertising two-4-one Doozy Dogs offered any relief from  
this forbidding image.

Self-abuse, thought crimes, and deviant  
behavior were Stuart's Holy Trinity, and he was disinclined to inquire after  
the nature of the Doozy Dogs besides, but they were nearly out of petrol, and  
god only knew how long it would be before they happened upon another filling station.

Some streets were paved with gold; he  
couldn't swing a dead cat without striking a club or a shop or an art gallery  
or a fabulous restaurant, and if he swung it the other way, he struck some  
fantastic bloke who'd been waiting for Stuart all his life.

And some streets weren't paved at all; some  
streets were poorly lit Dirt Roads of the Damned that stretched for nine or ten  
thousand miles and hadn't even a filthy rest stop to recommend them. Swing a  
dead cat in a place like that and he might strike a mailbox meant to resemble  
Graceland or he might strike some huge serial killer type who wanted to know  
what in hell Stuart thought he was doing with the spoils of his day's hunting.

Stuart glanced at Vince, who was fast  
asleep in the passenger's seat. His hair was mashed against the window and his  
jaw was slack, but he looked quite sweet just the same. Even if they did  
nothing all day, just drove and drove because there was nothing but twelve  
hours of road between one place and the next, still Vince collapsed at the end  
of the day as if they were competing in the Iditarod.

He just slumped wherever was closest,  
muttering to himself like an old dog, and the rest of his face might smooth out  
and soften as he relaxed-- he might even _smile_, heaven forfend-- but he  
always, _alway_s had that little crinkle between his eyebrows, as if even  
sleep couldn't rob him of the ability to fret.

More than once Stuart had tried to imagine  
what he dreamed about, whether his unconscious life was as fraught with peril  
as his waking one. Make Vince the leader of his own island paradise peopled  
entirely by gorgeous, oiled, adoring men, and Vince would start worrying about  
their dental plan and whether or not they had adequate UV protection.

He _was_ quite sweet, for all that  
he'd be a holy terror if Stuart dared wake him.

But he might _want_ Stuart to wake  
him, at least for as long as it took to have Stuart snap a photo of him,  
knee-deep in snow beneath a genuine Last Chance Gas sign. Vince, he'd learned,  
couldn't resist things that he'd never believed really existed.

Whether it was pickled mutant fetuses,  
castles constructed entirely of suspect luncheon meats, or the battle of the  
World's Biggest Chairs across small-town America, Vince could be relied upon to  
whip out one of his ubiquitous disposable cameras at a moment's notice to  
demand that Stuart snap a photo of him standing next to whatever ungodly  
monument they'd encountered.

That Stuart gave in every time with small  
complaint was, in his opinion, even more humiliating than was paying admission  
to see the Image of Christ Potato. But he'd done that as well.

Vince had so much to answer for.

"Vince," he murmured, stroking  
Vince's cheek with the back of his hand. Vince only sighed. "Oi, _Vince_."

"Piss off," he mumbled.

"It's a Last Chance Gas, Vince,"  
said Stuart. "In the arctic. They're probably selling tiger testicles out  
of the fucking ice cream cooler."

"I don't give a toss," he said,  
batting feebly at Stuart's hand.

"I have to go in," said Stuart,  
jostling his shoulder. "Do you want anything?"

"I want you to shut your face and  
leave me alone." He still hadn't opened his eyes. In spite of everything,  
Stuart hadn't managed to wake him yet, not completely.

"All right, fine," he said,  
snatching a blanket off the back seat and draping it over his friend. "But  
if anything happens to me in there, it's your fault."

Vince was already asleep again. Stuart  
decided to let him be; they were bound to find at least a hundred filling  
stations even more terrifying than this one before they were done, and any  
road, it was fucking _cold_ outside.

He didn't feel it in the Jeep so much, but  
it had really asserted itself when he'd stopped to have a piss on still another  
faceless stretch of the highway. Then he'd felt that he could've frozen solid,  
immortalized as Man Having Piss like one of the figures at Pompeii. An  
extremely _popular_ figure, of course, but that would've been small  
comfort to him.

Coaxing Vince out of the Jeep would've been  
easy after that ugly moment when Stuart shook him fully awake and Vince looked  
at him like he was the devil incarnate. He'd gotten off lucky with Vince this  
time; it hadn't been the first time Vince had communicated his displeasure with  
whichever fist was most convenient before he remembered himself.

Sometimes he _punched_, though.  
Sometimes his aim was better. So far Stuart had been that much quicker than  
Vince, but even Stuart's luck couldn't hold out indefinitely.

No, it was that _later_ moment-- when  
Vince was outside, camera in hand, when he lost all sensation in his  
extremities, when his breath froze in his throat and ice began forming on his  
eyebrows-- that Stuart truly feared. Then Vince would've suspected Stuart of  
waking him specifically to engineer a bad death for his friend, and no matter  
what Stuart said to him, the matter would never, ever be closed.

He remembered _everything_, Vince.

Stuart often fantasized about Vince being  
struck down by Alzheimer's disease in his dotage, but he knew enough about the  
condition to remind himself, time after miserable time, that Vince was more  
likely to forget the later events of his life than the earlier. At age  
seventy-six, he might not remember Stuart from one moment to the next, but by  
god, he'd remember the time he'd been roused out of peaceful slumber to freeze  
his balls off in Hell Has Frozen Over After All, British Columbia.

Steeling himself against the bitter wind,  
Stuart leapt out of the car and slammed the door shut. He was frozen half to  
death nearly instantly; he supposed they ought to've picked up some  
cold-weather gear somewhere along the line for just such an occasion, but  
although both he and Vince _knew_ that there were places in the world  
where a person could die of exposure in ten seconds or less, neither of them  
had ever imagined that they might actually _visit_ one.

As soon as the Jeep's tank was full, he  
sprinted for the shop, muttering and cursing, rubbing his hands together  
furiously enough to start a fire. His cheeks were stiff, his hair was full of  
static, and his eyes were watering; he felt like he'd had a bad curry and had  
only seconds to make peace with his loved ones before he was called before God  
to defend his many, many indefensible acts.

Still, all was forgiven and forgotten when  
he was safely inside and he got a good look at the bloke manning the tills.

_ _

He was nice; his hair was dark and shaved  
down almost to nothing, and he was a bit on the thin side, a bit bland, but  
nice. There was no telling how much nicer he'd have looked in a real shirt, _any_  
shirt other than the shiny brown polyester tunic that hugged his frame so  
affectionately, but he could only be improved, and that was good enough for  
Stuart.

He'd been slumped over some magazine spread  
out on the cash desk, obviously bored stupid and praying for an armed robbery  
to relieve the monotony, but when he saw Stuart framed in the doorway, he  
pulled himself up to his full height-- six-foot-something-- and tried without  
much success to suppress what was probably the only genuine smile he'd displayed  
in the workplace since his first day on the job.

Once he managed to get that under control,  
what was left was an expression of unabashed, unbridled lust, tinged with _just_  
the right amount of apprehension. It was a look that Stuart knew well, one he  
cultivated shamelessly. Just _thinking_ about that look made him hard  
sometimes. _Seeing_ it on a bloke he fancied gave him a fantastic, natural  
high.

Stuart almost felt sorry for him. He didn't  
know where in hell Pouce Coupe was in relation to the rest of the world except  
to say that it was a long, _long_ way out of town, but handsome had to be  
in short supply. _Stuart's_ arrival on the scene must've been devastating  
to the poor sod.

That thought made up Stuart's mind for him.

It no longer mattered that the fluorescent  
lighting was so very unpleasant, that the shop smelled of bleach and mildew,  
that the music hissing its way out of the cheap speakers on the tops of the  
drinks coolers was some sort of hellish up-tempo honky-tonk version of _Here,  
There, and Everywhere_. All that mattered was that this bloke was nice, and  
he was cruising Stuart, and Stuart was hard, so fucking _hard_.

He couldn't say that he'd never forgive  
himself if he only paid for his petrol and walked out. He could always have a  
wank in the car, and he'd most likely forget the clerk before the Jeep cleared  
the tarmac regardless; _Vince_ might remember the pointless minutiae of  
his life, but Stuart would never be troubled by thoughts of that polyester  
tunic again, even in his worst nightmares.

But there _was_ Vince to consider, out  
there in the car, snoring his life away. After a point, he couldn't sleep in  
any kind of light; he was like a child in that. He wouldn't last long with  
those fluorescents blasting the Jeep, and then he'd come looking.

Long enough, though.

Smiling seductively, Stuart prowled toward  
the clerk, holding his gaze, drawing him in. The clerk swallowed convulsively,  
his eyes going wide. Apparently he'd realized-- quicker than some-- that he  
wasn't hallucinating, that Stuart's demeanor wasn't especially that of a man  
who meant to ask whether he mightn't be able to just _pay_ for an ice  
scraper since he hadn't bought enough petrol to get one free with his purchase.

The sad thing was, he still thought he had  
a choice to make.

When Stuart reached the counter, he leaned  
over it teasingly, let himself become the clerk's whole world, just for a  
while.

"I'm Stuart," he said, as if this  
should've explained everything. "You busy?"

*** ***  
***

When Vince woke up, he was aware of three  
things at once: the Jeep was stopped, it was very cold, and he was alone.

This was exactly why he hated sleeping  
while Stuart drove. Things like this. He might fall asleep at half-three in the  
morning on their way out of Chicago, or Sydney, or Vienna-- Stuart seemed to be  
in charge of leaving places, and Vince in charge of arriving-- but he always  
seemed to wake up in some weird and scary place that Stuart had chosen  
specifically to punish him for falling asleep.

Until he and Stuart had left Manchester,  
Vince had had no idea that there were so many forsaken meat-rendering plants  
and burned-out flophouses in the world. Stuart found such places as if they  
were in a guide book somewhere: _Hellish Nightmare Spots on a Shoestring_.

It wasn't like Stuart to leave him alone,  
though. Not in a new town, any road. Not for any length of time. They'd been  
traveling for less than two months, but they'd come to rely on one another  
quickly, if discreetly. As Jim Morrison sang, people are strange when you're a  
stranger. It was as important to them to know _where_ their friends were  
as _who_.

It was hard to say what had awakened Vince.  
It might've been the cold; his breath was coming out in visible puffs, and the  
windows were lightly dusted with snow. It might've been the noise; even now,  
the sound of a nearby train was so loud that it was hard to concentrate.

Even so, it seemed to him that the most  
likely culprit was the blinding fluorescent light that flooded the car and  
everything around it with the intensity of an entire armada of Hollywood UFOs.  
No living creature could've slept for long with that harsh and aggressive light  
assailing them, least of all Vince, who had a budgie's sensibility where light  
and sleep were concerned.

The Jeep was parked on the greasy tarmac of  
a remote filling station. The building that adjoined it was fairly large,  
probably because it _was_ so remote. There was absolutely nothing else but  
empty road as far as Vince could see. No lights off in the distance, no road  
signs advertising another, nicer place. Just this filling station, the bloody  
Pouce Coupe Last Chance Gas, a Last Chance Gas to end all Last Chance Gases.

Vince had no clue where in hell Pouce Coupe  
was, except that he was fairly sure it was somewhere in Canada-- they'd been in  
Canada when he'd fallen asleep-- and that it had to be a northern town. Where  
else could you hope to find a foot of snow on the ground in mid-April?

He supposed it could happen in Alaska.

Oh, _Christ_, what if Stuart had  
dragged him into bloody _Alaska_?

The fact of the cold car seemed ominous to  
him, no matter how frigid it was outside. Had Stuart been a normal person,  
Vince wouldn't have thought anything of it. How much trouble could a _normal_  
person get into at a filling station in a sleepy nowhere town in the middle of  
the night? What was the worst that could happen then? They'd buy the wrong  
flavor of crisps and call it a night.

Stuart, though...

Vince popped open the glove box. Stuart's  
gun was still there, gleaming, nestled in among road maps and serviettes and  
sugar-free gum. He couldn't have been too worried, then. Not that he ever was.  
Vince was almost positive that Stuart had only bought the gun in the first  
place because he enjoyed fucking with people so very, very much.

He wasn't a scrapper, Stuart. He was much  
too vain for that. If he wanted to strike out against someone, he preferred to  
manipulate events from behind the scenes. There was no revenge the equal of one  
that nobody could ever pin on him. It was enough for _him_ to know he'd  
done it, and _sod_ everyone else. Blowing up Mrs. Perry's car had been a  
deviation, but not one he regretted.

Even now, Vince saw that look in Stuart's  
eyes from time to time, that wild, furious look that said he might do something  
mad and terrible at any moment. He needed Vince to temper that, and always had  
done.

Sighing, Vince grabbed the gun, steeled  
himself, and got out of the car. It was _cold_ outside, _astoundingly_  
cold. When he inhaled, the air froze in his throat, and when he exhaled, his breath  
hung in the air in little cartoony puffs for far too long before it dissipated,  
as if it was considering freezing solid and crashing to the ground.

It crossed his mind that he'd have frozen  
to death eventually if he hadn't woken up and Stuart dallied a little too long.  
That horrible lighting had saved his life.

Nasty thought, that.

And he knew exactly how Stuart would've  
reacted if he'd come back to the car god knew when and found Vince dead, frozen  
solid. He would've just stared at him for long seconds, stared at him and  
snarled "For fuck's _sake_!"

He'd probably be relieved; it'd save him  
having to shoot Vince and toss him out of the car while they sped along the  
Autobahn, finally driven beyond endurance by Vince's unfortunate obsession with  
the Mr. Potatohead Silly Suitcase that Stuart had given him when he'd  
complained that he was _sick_ of the fucking license plate game.

"Bastard," he grumbled, shoving  
the gun into his waistband, zipping his jacket up to his throat. He'd been  
standing outside less than thirty seconds and already his face was numb from  
cold. Unless Stuart was dead or dying, Vince would make him pay for this. Oh  
yes.

The filling station shop was deserted. No  
customers, of course, but no clerk, either. Just a vast assortment of  
unwholesome snacks and beverages, a bank machine, a bashed-up _Popeye _game,  
and an unmanned cash register.

Vince was particularly discomfited by the  
cash register.

Even in places like this, armed robberies  
weren't unheard of. They probably happened _oftener_ in places like this,  
thousands of miles from the nearest police station. Shoot the clerk, dump him  
in a snowbank, and who's to know before the spring thaw?

"Hello..?"

Nervous now, he peeked over the cash desk.  
There was nothing. He crept up and down the aisles, checking the windows on  
every return trip. He thought about trying the toilets, but they were outdoors,  
there were no keys of any kind in evidence, and anyway, he wasn't keen on  
filling station toilets.

This left him with only one option: the  
closed door at the back of the shop with the **NO ADMITTANCE** sign on it,  
hung ever so slightly askew.

More than anything, Vince wanted to pretend  
that he hadn't noticed that door. It was a don't-open-that-door sort of door,  
the sort of door behind which one never found anything but gory death,  
bloodthirsty creatures from outer space, and terrible one-liners. While Vince  
stared at it, it stared back, marked with the smudged fingerprints of its past  
victims, mocking him with its diabolism.

And then, out of desperation as much as  
anything else, a second possibility suggested itself to him-- worse in its own  
way than the first.

Even in towns like this one, people hardly  
ever scheduled women for the graveyard shift anymore. So it had most likely  
been a _bloke_ working the till and guarding the pumps, a _lonely_  
bloke, of course, because who in god's name even passed _through_ a place  
like this at such an hour?

He mightn't have been _completely_  
unattractive, and as much as it pained Vince to admit it, there were times when  
any bloke who wasn't _completely_ unattractive was good enough for Stuart.  
It wasn't altruism, of course, and it wasn't perversity, though there was no  
denying that Stuart's streak of perversity stretched nearly as far as did his  
streak of self-interest.

It was just that in the right mood, Stuart  
really would have nearly anyone. In that mood, looks were as unimportant to him  
as were such other minor details as what a bloke did for a living, or how he  
felt about the conflict in the Middle East, or his name.

Vince didn't have long to mull it over; the  
awful, unavoidable truth assailed him like a slap in the face: Stuart _was_  
shagging some sad Canadian convenience store bloke while Vince was meant to be  
sleeping, and oblivious. He was in there now, that undoubtedly filthy, shabby  
little room, shagging that bloke senseless. He'd probably let the poor sod  
think that it was the only way he could cover his petrol charge, just to amuse  
himself. Give the twat a good story for his ice fishing mates.

Something in Vince resisted the idea,  
though; something refused to believe that his best friend had abandoned him to  
a bad death while Stuart himself was indoors, warm, and having it off with a  
skinny, inbred mutant who'd send him off after with a telephone number and an  
armload of overpriced thirst-quenchers and Pop Tarts.

"Hello..?" Vince tried again.

"I'd like to pay for... eh..." His gaze landed on a box of tiny blue  
light bulbs. "These light bulbs. Cor, they're a bit pricey, aren't they?  
That's the trouble with convenience stores, you pay for the convenience."

Still nothing.

"Bloody hell." Swallowing hard,  
he took one last look around the shop to reassure himself that he wasn't being  
watched. Then he strode right up to the door and had a listen.

"Ohh," Stuart moaned obligingly.  
"Ohh, fuck, _fuck_!"

Vince was disgusted with himself. He  
should've let well enough alone, should've twigged, gone back outside and  
waited for Stuart, or fucked off with the Jeep and left him there.

Whoever had said ignorance was bliss hadn't  
said it for nothing; it _was_, if not on the same level as getting a sound  
shafting from a bloke who was absolutely committed to the moment, as Stuart  
clearly was.

Stuart wouldn't have left him outside if  
he'd been looking at porn-- not that he was likely to find gay porn in a  
filling station shop in bloody Pouce Coupe anyway-- or watching telly with the  
clerk, or engaged in a hostage situation. For a shag, though, Stuart would  
leave Vince stranded in the desert with nothing but his fags for company.

Not even that, if the shag was a smoker.

Fair dues, it was a bit dodgy as value  
systems went, but Stuart was faithful to it. And _it_ was faithful to _him_;  
who else but Stuart could've found a shag in the middle of the Canadian arctic  
wilderness?

"_Bastard_."

After he'd been fuming a while, he realized  
that he was letting himself in for a world of pain and degradation if Stuart  
caught him standing there like that. Still, he listened a little longer. It was  
a lovely sound, Stuart moaning. He had a way of doing it, so abandoned, so  
ecstatic, it was like he knew he sounded sexy and he got off on it himself.

Some blokes were embarrassed by the sounds  
they made, but not Stuart. _Nothing_ embarrassed him. He'd probably have  
shagged the clerk in the Jeep with Vince sleeping peacefully beside them if it  
hadn't been so bloody cold outside.

There were times when Vince thought he  
must've been mad to leave with Stuart like he had. Not mad to leave, but mad to  
leave with _Stuart_, knowing full well what he'd be subjecting himself to.

Every so often Stuart would tantalize him  
with the possibility of a shag-- just a hint, just a suggestion, but he was  
sincere enough for all that it was painfully obvious that he never expected  
Vince to accept, that he wasn't bothered either way.

Still, he could pick a moment. He always  
said at the perfect time, when everything was brilliant and Vince really _wanted_  
it, more than anything, when he'd have risked everything, shagged Stuart in  
front of god and everyone, his mum, Petula Clark, the Dalai Lama, _everyone_.

But he couldn't shake the feeling that  
Stuart was only asking because he couldn't find a better bloke and there was  
nothing on telly, and Vince didn't want that.

Stuart never put up an argument when Vince  
turned him down or brushed him off. He just went about his business, still not  
bothered in the least, shags seemingly falling out of the sky whenever he  
fancied one. And Vince made a kind of peace with that, as he always had.

Fate had made no such concession. It took  
every available opportunity to kick Vince in the goolies, just to remind him  
that he wasn't half so resigned as he liked to believe, that he wasn't a big  
person at all, but a tiny, tiny man-- practically a troll, really-- bitter,  
angry, frightened of his own shadow, and thoroughly unwilling to take a risk  
with his _shoelaces_, let alone the man who meant more to him than  
anything.

And then Vince would remember that Stuart  
only made his offers so many times before he just stopped offering. Vince had a  
matter of weeks-- if that-- to make up his mind, where Stuart had had sixteen  
bloody _years_ to do the same. There was no justice in life. None  
whatsoever.

Take now, for instance. Vince was trapped  
in a convenience store in the dead of night with a stiff neck and an atomic  
hard-on, listening outside a door like a pervo while Stuart got shagged, and  
all _he_ got was skin cancer from that horrible fluorescent light. He saw  
no reason why it should be a _total_ cock-up for him, though. After  
casting one last doleful glance at the door, he nicked a carton of fags and a  
massive Cadbury Fruit n' Nut bar and walked out of the shop without paying for  
either of them.

_ Vince Tyler: Renegade Shoplifter _ . He  
started feeling guilty about it before he even made it back to the car.

After he'd warmed up a bit and had a smoke,  
he realized it was a lovely night. The air was clean and crisp and there were  
more stars in the sky than he'd imagined even existed. The train had finally  
passed into the night sometime during Vince's ordeal in the shop, and the  
ensuing silence was scarcely penetrated by the quiet rumble of the Jeep's  
engine.

In his mind, he could still hear Stuart's  
cries.

He wondered how the scene had played out:  
whether the clerk really was a skinny, inbred mutant or just someone imminently  
corruptible, how Stuart had pulled him, who'd been doing the fucking. Had they  
had to shove a lot of marshmallow Sno-Balls and outdated jerked products out of  
the way to make proper use of some sort of scarred utility table, or were they  
going at it on the floor?

Sighing heavily, he reached between his  
legs and shifted himself a bit.

He'd always devoted far more time to  
thoughts of Stuart's sex life than was good for him, but it was much worse now,  
now that his own sex life was near enough to nonexistent as made no difference.  
He hadn't copped off on anything _approaching_ Stuart's scale in  
Manchester, but he'd managed it occasionally.

Stuart hadn't slowed down at all since  
they'd left, but most of the time when Vince was being cruised, he was too busy  
just absorbing things to take any notice. Stuart seemed to delight in pointing  
these blokes out to Vince after they were long gone.

Of course, Vince being who he was, it was  
all too possible that if Stuart _had_ found some semblance of decency in  
his soul and tried to give him a gentle push, Vince would've ignored the bloke  
anyway.

_ He's nice, Stuart _ , Vince  
might've said, _but look at this statue of Beethoven. They say it weeps blood  
on Andrew Lloyd Weber's birthday, but I think it's clam cocktail_.

Men came and went, many of them more or  
less interchangeable, but there was only one World's Biggest Anchovy, and  
nobody at home would believe there was even _one_ if he didn't have  
photographic evidence to back up his story.

*** ***  
***

Stuart could feel Vince glaring at him  
before he even cleared the doorway of the Last Chance Gas. In spite of  
everything, he hadn't expected that it'd take him so long to talk the clerk  
into a shag. Nearly ten minutes, all told, the twat.

He'd seemed worth it, though. So grateful,  
so enthusiastic, Stuart could've done next to nothing-- just _unfastened_  
his trousers, not even shucked them-- and it would've been good enough for him.

He'd _seemed_ worth it, yeah, but that  
was before Stuart had known that Vince was awake.

Vince had a way with a good, sound  
bollocking; he could go on for hours. Always before, shutting him up had been  
as easy as fleeing the scene, hanging up on him, kissing some bloke he fancied.  
Now they were together all the time, and no matter how wide Vince's focus  
seemed at times, it narrowed down to a tiny pinprick when he felt wronged.  
Stuart might distract him for a while, but he'd pick up the original thread of  
his conversation eventually, and never mind that Stuart refused to apologize to  
him.

He wasn't sure that Vince didn't prefer it  
that way. As long as Stuart never apologized or offered any sort of reasonable  
explanation for his behavior, Vince was free to bitch about it for as long he  
liked without a trace of shame.

Stuart grinned at him now, sure it would  
infuriate him, and he wasn't far wrong: Vince rolled his eyes and sighed  
explosively enough to fog the window. Grinning even more broadly, Stuart hopped  
into the car and slammed the door shut, shivering.

Vince was still scowling at him, but now  
that he was close enough to see that Vince's hair was still mashed flat on the  
side that had been pressed against the window, that he was a bit groggy, that  
he was completely turned on, it rather spoiled the effect. There were _reasons_  
for that scowl, and some of them might've been Stuart's fault, but they weren't  
_all_ his fault.

"You're awake," he said.

"You're a _cunt_," said  
Vince. "I could've _died_ out here."

"Nah," he scoffed. "I  
covered you up."

Vince glanced down at the floor where the  
blanket lay trampled, his expression all surprise. Evidently he'd forgotten  
about it while he'd been working himself up into a froth. Now he scooped it up  
and wrapped it around Stuart's shoulders.

"You could've said," he muttered,  
yanking the ends around Stuart's throat perhaps a little too tightly.  
"Left a note or something."

"No time," Stuart said. Vince was  
scowling again. "Listen, Vince, he had this button. Pinned to his  
shirt." He met Vince's eyes in the darkness and smiled lazily. "It  
said _ask me about our full-service pump_."

"And you asked him," Vince said  
fondly. "Where the hell _are_ we, anyway?"

"How the fuck should _I _know?"

He glanced back at the shop. The clerk had already resumed his post behind the  
cash register. Now he was staring at the Jeep in a fashion which gave off the  
strong suggestion that he could be persuaded to join the two of them without  
much difficulty.

Of course, if the rest of Pouce Coupe was  
anything like this, he probably could've been persuaded to join just about _anyone_  
without much difficulty, so long as they were leaving, and _soon_.

Guilt was starting to nibble at Stuart, and  
he resented it.

"I could ask him," said Vince.

"No, you couldn't. He thinks you're  
autistic. Like, _Rain Man_ autistic."

Vince didn't so much as blink at this.  
"You could write him a note and I could take it in."

Stuart gazed at him evenly. "You  
really wanna do that?"

"I want a _bed_," he  
groaned, leaning back against the headrest and closing his eyes. "That's  
all."

"Well, we can't ask him about hotels,  
if that's what you're thinking. He wanted us to wait for him in his trailer.  
It's a double-wide."

"And what was _I_ meant to  
do?" he demanded. "Memorize the telephone directory and count  
toothpicks while the two of you decided whether the love that dare not speak  
its name should be called Billy-Ray or Bobby-Joe?"

He flicked an impatient hand at Vince.  
"Just get us out of here, all right? We can sort it out while we  
drive."

Vince made himself comfortable and lit a  
fag.

"For fuck's _sake_," Stuart  
snapped, "_look_ at him, he's gonna come pelting out here any minute.  
If you won't start the bloody car, then get the fuck out of the way so I can do  
it."

"Made an impression, did you?"

"Look around you, Vince. How often  
d'you think he cops off? Even _you_ have better luck than him."

"Piss off," he said, cuffing  
Stuart in the shoulder.

"_Drive_."

Sighing loudly, Vince did as he was told,  
gunning the engine more than was strictly necessary.

"And turn left," Stuart added.

"I saw a sign a little way back, said there's supposed to be a motel about  
twenty miles away. Probably has Magic Fingers on the beds. Give you a  
thrill."

"Thanks," he said sincerely.

Stuart waved him off. He felt more  
magnanimous with every inch Vince put between the Jeep and the filling station.  
"We've got loads of time, haven't we? Anyway I don't fancy sleeping in the  
car any more than you do." He spotted a huge Cadbury Fruit n' Nut bar on  
the dashboard and nabbed it when Vince wasn't looking. "Where'd you get  
this?" he said absently while he tore it open.

"I nicked it," Vince said  
proudly. "From your boyfriend."

Stuart grinned. "You never."

"I _did_. Practically snatched it  
right under his nose. I'm on the security camera and everything."

He poked Vince in the belly. "You're  
handi_capable_."

"Oh, fuck _off_," said  
Vince. "Why'd you have to tell him I was autistic, anyway? You can't  
expect me to believe that you had to lie to him to get shagged. _You_

don't have to lie. _I_ have to lie. _You_ don't have to _anything_."

"He was talking threesome."

"Oh, and what? You thought _Oh no,  
not for Vince, he's already scandalously oversexed as it is_?"

He shot Vince an irritated look. "I  
didn't think you'd be up for it, did I?"

"I _wouldn't_ be up for it,"

he said peevishly. "Threesome with a lonely filling station attendant,  
it's straight out of a porno. It's embarrassing. But you could've _asked_,  
for Christ's sake."

"Right, yeah," Stuart said.  
"_Oi, Vince, wake up, you fancy a threesome? No? Well, carry on, then_."

For long seconds, Vince said nothing, just  
glared impotently at the road ahead, brooding. Eventually he said, "You  
don't have to get sarky."

*** ***  
***

Vince rolled over in bed for what seemed  
like the thousandth time that night, jabbing his pillow with his fist as if he  
blamed it for everything.

The atomic hard-on was back.

It had subsided by the time they'd made it  
to the motel-- a manky little ten-room place with no restaurant and no telly  
that hadn't been redecorated since 1976 and had the cheek to call itself  
Paradise Towers-- but as soon as he'd fallen into bed, the atomic hard-on had  
returned with a vengeance, and once again, it was all Stuart's fault.

Stuart had had a shower as soon as they'd  
set their bags down-- he hadn't even _asked_ Vince whether he might like  
to shower first, the bastard-- and then he'd emerged from the tiny bathroom  
like a spokesperson for the carnal arts, naked and smelling fabulous. He'd  
barely spared Vince a glance before he'd crawled into bed, and he'd fallen  
asleep almost instantly, only to squirm about and toss the duvet onto the  
floor, exposing his every twitch and tremble to Vince's prying eyes.

It wasn't the first time Stuart had done  
this to him, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. If Vince couldn't manage to  
fall asleep soon, he'd see it all: Stuart would moan, and growl, and writhe,  
his back would stretch into a perfect arc, and he'd cry out like he'd never  
come before, his eyes would squeeze shut, his voice would catch...

It was an irony Vince was utterly incapable  
of appreciating. He'd never shagged Stuart, not once, but now he knew even this  
side of his friend better than anyone. Nobody was a greater advocate than Vince  
for the theory that Hell was life on earth.

Could have a wank, he supposed. _Should_  
do. He'd never sleep as he was. And Stuart slept like a man who'd passed many a  
night with strange men in his flat: once he settled down, you'd think he was  
dead unless you watched the rise and fall of his chest _very_ carefully.  
He woke instantly, but only when he was ready or something was wrong.

Squeaky bedsprings and muffled moans were  
probably so much white noise to him, the bastard.

Still.

What if Stuart caught him?

It'd be humiliating, that. Somehow, doing  
it like that, in secret, it was like hiding out and doing it, or hiding out and  
dressing in his grandmother's fine washables. Doing it in secret gave it a  
veneer of shame that might've been thrilling for some, but not for Vince, who  
preferred not to apologize for liking the odd wank. Not that he'd ever been  
called upon to do so.

He wasn't about to wank off with Stuart  
right there, though. No chance.

Vince cast a resentful look in Stuart's  
direction. He was so sleek, so lovely, so _fantastic_, and he shivered and  
squirmed, moaning extravagantly, as if it wasn't enough to torment Vince in  
every waking moment, as if he had to do it in his sleep as well if he wanted to  
live a full life.

Hell on fucking earth.

He could go to Stuart now, he could climb  
in bed with him, roll him over and fuck him, and Stuart would let him. He'd  
laugh at Vince-- he _always_ laughed at Vince-- but he wouldn't say no.  
He'd take it, and like it, and make a memory for Vince that he'd never forget,  
and not just because he never forgot anything.

Then there'd be another lonely filling  
station attendant, or a busboy at a truck stop, or some bloke at a club who was  
creaming himself over Stuart's Irish bloody accent, and Vince would be  
shattered, but he'd stick around, because somebody had to pour Stuart into the  
Jeep at closing time.

Stuart didn't have the decency to pretend  
that the situation was other than it was, because Stuart didn't have decency,  
full stop. He was a cunt and a twat and a bastard, but he was so _sexy_...

Vince rolled out of bed and stalked to the  
bathroom. The drama of the moment was diminished somewhat when he took care to  
close the door quietly, but drama wasn't his main concern just then. His cock  
was throbbing, aching, pulsing, but when he reached down to stroke it through  
his boxers, the first thought that came to him was _What if Stuart hears_?

"Oh, Christ," he sighed, hopping  
up on the narrow counter, "I'm such a twat."

He buried his face in his hands. He was  
going to die young, he realized. He was going to die young, and it wouldn't be  
because he smoked too much, or because he'd fall asleep at the wheel and plunge  
the Jeep into a ravine, or because Stuart decided to give him a sloppy snog in  
front of some cranky Texans.

No, he was going to die of blue balls.

He'd always thought that was a myth, but  
now he knew the truth: _it happened_. It happened all too often. And it  
happened because of bastards like Stuart who had only been placed on god's  
earth to ruin all that was good in life for everybody else.

When the door swung open and Stuart  
strolled in, stark bollock naked and half-covered in spunk, Vince nearly had a  
coronary. Stuart barely spared him a glance before he switched on the tap, wet  
a washcloth, and began cleaning himself up.

"Oi!" said Vince. "D'you  
mind?"

Still swabbing himself off, Stuart flashed  
him a look of irritation. But the look caught, and held, and softened. It was  
an expression peculiar to Stuart, one Vince couldn't identify or ignore. Stuart  
just stared at him, smiling faintly, and Vince stared back, till Stuart ended  
the stalemate to give his friend a long, leisurely once-over, from eyes to  
erection and back again. Still smiling that strange smile, he shook his head  
and never said a word.

"Right," said Vince, sliding off  
the counter. "I'll leave you to it, shall I?"

He started toward the door, but Stuart  
stopped him, Stuart pinned him up against the wall, Stuart yanked his boxers  
down roughly and took his cock in hand.

"Shit!" Vince gasped.  
"Stuart--"

"Let me," Stuart said quietly,  
hypnotically, his mouth a breath away, his hand squeezing Vince's cock  
teasingly. "Just fucking _let_ me, Vince."

Vince _meant_ to answer him, he  
honestly _meant_ to, even if he'd no hope of saying anything clever, even  
if the best he managed was a simple _Yes_ or _No_ or _What the hell  
else _could_ I do, you mad bastard_?, but all that came out was a long,  
hoarse groan.

For Stuart, that was assent enough.  
Laughing softly, he plunged his tongue into Vince's mouth, laid _siege_ to  
it, taking everything Vince had and then demanding more.

His grip on Vince's cock was sure and  
purposeful now; this was no tease. He was rough and fast and ruthless, and he  
had Vince fucking his fist in seconds, had him moaning as helplessly and  
needfully as Stuart himself had done just a short while before, his eyes  
squeezed shut, his head thrown back, everything he was and everything he felt  
laid out for Stuart like the most shameless tourist attraction on planet earth.

And then he was _there_, right _there_,  
he was coming hard, his head thumping against the wall, one hand on Stuart's wrist,  
the other in his hair, and he didn't care anymore about what sort of sounds he  
was making.

"Look at you," Stuart murmured in  
his ear before nibbling on the lobe. "You stubborn cunt, you're fucking _starving_  
for it, aren't you?"

Vince barely heard him. All there was for  
him was Stuart's mouth and Stuart's hand, as his cock pulsed again and again  
and again, all the spunk in the world, and it was so intense that he could  
barely breathe, didn't _want_ to breathe, if it meant an end to this.

When it was over, he collapsed against the  
wall, dazed, weak-kneed, panting, and speechless. He watched Stuart cautiously,  
waiting for insult or explanation. Stuart met his eyes evenly, lifted his hand  
to his mouth, and licked off a little of Vince's spunk.

"Jesus Christ, Stuart," Vince  
murmured, "what're you _like_?"

Raising his eyebrows, Stuart held his hand  
up to Vince's mouth, offering him a taste. Vince shook his head slowly. With an  
affectionate smile, Stuart gave his hand one last swipe with his tongue before  
he picked up the washcloth again and rinsed it out. Then he slapped it into  
Vince's hand.

"Clean yourself up," he said  
briskly, strolling out of the room as casually as he'd come in. "Then come  
to bed and go to sleep."

*** ***  
***

Stuart flopped down on his bed and  
stretched luxuriously, flush with satisfaction.

He'd finally had Vince, in a roundabout  
sort of way, and it hadn't been everything he'd imagined, but that was partly  
because he'd never imagined it like it had been, Vince all shivery and greedy,  
grabbing on like a drowning man too far gone to know he was drowning his  
rescuer as well.

He'd thought Vince might be achingly _nice_

about it, as he was with so much else-- especially when he had something to  
lose-- and he'd thought Vince might be sort of rough and desperate, going for  
broke because he assumed it was a one-off and he might as well get his licks in  
while he could. He'd thought of Vince as sweet or sour, hot or cold, but no  
matter how Vince had presented himself to Stuart in his imagination, he'd never  
thought of Vince as _greedy_.

The whole thing had opened up brand-new  
avenues of exploration for him. If Vince turned on like that for a _wank_…

God, and he kissed like wildfire in a dry  
season. Stuart had already come three times that day, once no more than five  
minutes before he'd found Vince agonizing in the bathroom, but even as quickly  
as Vince had come, Stuart was half-hard again before Vince was done.

The way he'd ground into Stuart's fist, the  
feel of his hand tangled in Stuart's hair as he tried to defy the laws of  
physics to get still more of Stuart's mouth, the sound of his moans, deep down  
in his chest, it'd been like he couldn't get enough of Stuart. It hadn't been  
the first time some bloke had behaved that way, but Vince wasn't some bloke.

He was a pain in the arse like the other  
blokes, and occasionally he hung about where he wasn't wanted like the other  
blokes, but he never let Stuart get away with anything, never believed a word he  
said, never hesitated to take the piss when a piss-taking was in order, never  
backed down. When Stuart attacked him he might get a look on his face like  
Stuart had ripped out his still-beating heart, _stopped_ it beating,  
tossed it on his hibachi and served it to a client he didn't especially like  
after leaving Vince to scrub the grill, but he wouldn't back down.

Sometimes Stuart really disliked that about  
him.

But he _had_ backed down this time,  
hadn't he?

Two months of flirting and teasing, two  
months of employing more subtlety than he'd thought he had, two months of _wooing_,  
for fuck's sake, trying to wear Vince down-- and really, it was a lot bloody  
longer than two months when he took into account the months beforehand when he  
hadn't tried for subtlety at all-- and in all that time, Vince had only ever  
reacted one way: first with wide-eyed horror, then with some weak and  
implausible fairy tale that revealed with startling clarity the chief reason  
why he'd risen only so far in the ranks at Harlo's before he'd become firmly  
entrenched in the wasteland of middle-management:

Everything the poor bastard felt was  
broadcast on his face. _Everything_.

When Stuart had found him in the bathroom,  
sitting there with that fantastic hard-on and staring at Stuart like the Greek  
god of resentment, he'd decided that he'd had enough. _Fuck_ flirting, _fuck_  
subtlety, and fuck _Vince_ if he tried to put him off one more bloody  
time.

People might say that Stuart was selfish,  
or vain, or insensitive. They might call him cruel, hedonistic, superficial,  
they might say that he was a blight on humanity, blessed with so many gifts and  
pissing them away at a whim, but nobody ever said he couldn't pick a moment.

Now it was just a matter of picking the _next_  
one.

He was still mulling it over when Vince  
finally emerged from the bathroom, hesitating between their two beds before he  
crawled back into his own. As soon as he was settled, he turned on his side,  
facing Stuart-- watching him. "I never even _touched_ you," he murmured.  
His voice was still a bit rough. "I'm such a twat."

"I'd like to pay for these light  
bulbs," said Stuart in a flawless send-up of his friend.

"I _knew_ you heard me, you  
bastard," Vince said indignantly. "_First_ you leave me to  
freeze my _arse_ off in the bloody car in the middle of _nowhere_, _then_

you go swanning off to shag some genetic abomination, _then_ you keep _on_  
doing when you _know_ I'm standing right outside, trying to determine  
whether my hands are going to _stay_ enormous and red or turn black and  
fall off at some inopportune moment, leaving me the saddest man alive, bereft  
of a shag _and_ a wank. _Bastard_."

"How long were you listening  
outside?" he asked innocently.

"Cheeky."

Stuart rolled onto his stomach and tried to  
make out Vince's face. In the weak light filtering through the soiled drapes,  
the best he could manage was a vague idea of Vince's features. It bothered him  
that he had to imagine the rest. Vince was on his back, and probably he had his  
eyes closed, because he wouldn't want to chance spotting something dreadful on  
the ceiling, and because he'd want to concentrate on Stuart's voice instead.  
Probably he was smiling faintly, grudgingly, amused and appalled by Stuart in  
equal measure. 

It galled Stuart to think that he knew  
exactly how Vince might look in any given situation, but he had no idea how he  
might look after a shag, before he fell asleep, when he was savoring the  
afterglow and fretting about the following morning.

He knew nearly everything about Vince: his life  
story, his fantasies, his disappointments, everything he was and everything he  
wished he was, how he felt, how he thought, the things he loved and the things  
he feared. It was a terrible thing, it was like an atomic bomb; in the wrong  
hands, it could mean the end of the world. But Vince had the same power over  
him, and somehow, in spite of everything, they'd always managed to keep the  
peace.

"Come sleep with me," he said  
softly, and like though Vince hadn't been moving much anyway, it was obvious  
that he'd frozen at this.

No doubt he had that look again, wide-eyed  
horror. No doubt he was already concocting some cock-and-bull story about the  
raging eczema on his knees, not even caring that Stuart had come in close  
contact with those knees mere moments before.

Stuart was incensed. "For fuck's sake,  
Vince," he said, "I just gave you the best wank of your life."

"It was all right," he confessed.  
"Wasn't the _best_, though."

"Bollocks," Stuart said. Vince  
was silent. "Who was the best, then, that twat in Penzance?"

"It was my first time," he  
protested.

"Doesn't make it the _best_ time,  
does it? Just, like, memorable. Some nutter could lop off your arms after a  
shag and make it bloody _memorable_."

"You're right, Stuart," Vince  
said tiredly. "It was a magnificent wank. It's a shame you didn't have  
your video camera, or we might've submitted that wank for the Best Short Film  
category at the bloody BAFTA awards. I'll never have a wank in my life that  
doesn't pale in comparison to the wonder and majesty of the wank you gave me  
tonight."

"So come sleep with me," said  
Stuart. "C'mon. If you don't, you'll just lie awake bellyaching about it  
all bloody night."

They'd slept together before, of course, at  
sleepovers, after a bad night out, when they hadn't managed a room with double  
beds. He quite liked it, actually, having someone in bed with him who wasn't  
likely to rob his watch if he slept too soundly. Vince didn't thrash about, he  
wasn't given to nightmares, he never took more of the blankets than he was  
entitled to. And he never complained when he woke up with Stuart sprawled on  
top of him. He'd let Stuart be, stay like that for hours if he had to, if he  
could.

Now Vince stayed where he was for so long  
that Stuart thought he was going to stonewall him again, but eventually--  
reluctantly, muttering and sighing to make it clear that he was making a  
tremendous sacrifice for his friend-- Vince slid out of his bed and into  
Stuart's. Then he lay there stiffly, with at least a mile of space between  
Stuart and himself, arms at his sides, obviously waiting for Stuart to perform  
some dreadful mischief upon him.

But he'd done it, that was the main thing.

Stuart climbed on top of him, wrapped  
himself around him, planted a big, smacking kiss on his forehead. "Mm,  
you're coming along nicely," he said.

Vince rolled his eyes. "Fuck  
off."


End file.
